Backtracking - Is a method for reaching a series of sub-goals. Each sub-goal may have multiple solutions and the solution chosen for each sub-goal may affect the choice of solutions for later goals.

To reach the final goal, the computer must first find a solution to the first sub-goal and then, with recursion, attempt solve the other pre-final goals based on this first evaluation. If it is impossible to reach the final goal given the current path, or if all possible solutions are needed, the computer backtracks and tries the next possible solution to its first sub-goal and to its next, etc. It stops backtracking when there are no more paths to traverse.

Backup - Refers to a copy of a program, file, or data base. It also refers to the process of producing a copy.

Backus-Naur Form - Is a way of representing a language and its grammar. A BNF grammar consists of production rules. These rules themselves are made up of terminal and non-terminal symbols. These are used to generate sentences.
An example of a simple BNF grammar is as follows:

Bandwidth - Is a measurement of the capacity of a transmission system. It is typically measured in Hertz.

Barrel Shifters - Refers to hardware devices that can rotate a word by any number of bits in a single operation.

Base Address - Refers to the genesis address for a sequence. A base address may refer to the zero point on a stack.

Base - Refers to the beginning of a sequence or the radix of a number.

bash - Is the Bourne Again Shell. Works with the unix sh but provides for many enhancements found in the C and Korne Shells.

bat or BAT - Refers to Batch.

Batch File - Is an ASCII text file which contains a series of commands. These commands run sequentially.

Baud Rate - Refers to the speed of data transmission.

BESTŪ
Pricing - Is a sophisticated pricing algorithm and methodology. It sifts and compares live actual prices when available. If live market prices are not available, then it jumps to a dynamic, sequential and hierarchical pricing module which generates fair price estimates for evaluation and trading purposes.

Bernoulli Trials - Is a set of Independent Events where each event has a probability of success and a probability of failure. These probabilities of success or failure are the same for each event in the set. A success or failure is mutually exclusive. A good example is the tossing of a 'fair' coin 5 times. Each time the coin is tossed it has 50% chance of heads and a 50% chance of tails. Thus the first time the coin is tossed it has a 50% chance of being heads. The second time there is a 25% chance of both coins being heads. The third a 12% likelihood of three heads. The fourth a 6% probability all heads; and finally for the fifth a 3% probability that all tosses result in heads.

Best-First - Is an algorithm that uses heuristic data to expand the most promising node in a search path.

Bidirection Shift Register - Refers to hardware devices that can rotate a word clockwise (right) or counter-clockwise (left) in a single operation.

Big Oh - Is a method of determining the processor time for a particular algorithm.

bios or BIOS - Refers to Basic Input/Output System. This information is stored as programs on a ROM chip.

bin - Refers to binary or binaries.

Binary Decision Diagram - Is also often refered to as a Rooted Directed Acyclic Graph. By reducing a decision tree through eliminating all equal subexpressions we are left with a set of expressions that when represented as a DAG become a Binary Decision Diagram.

Bit - Is the basic unit of digital communication.

bitrate - Is the speed in which data is transfered relative to bits. This is often expressed in bits per second or bits per minute.